Late one night in November 2005, a small group of plain-clothed police officers pulled over a bus in western India. They escorted a man named Sohrabuddin Sheikh off the vehicle, who was joined on the side of the road by his wife, Kausar. Sheikh and Kausar were put into separate police cars and driven 1,000km away, across state lines, into Gujarat. They would never see each other again.
Sheikh had not been charged with anything. On reaching Ahmedabad, Gujarat's most populous city, Sheikh and Kausar were not taken to a police station. They were detained in separate bungalows in a residential neighbourhood. Two days later, on 26 November, Sheikh was driven to a highway intersection in south Ahmedabad and shot dead. Police claimed Sheikh was a member of an Islamist terrorist group and had been shot while trying to escape. Four days after Sheikh's death, Kausar was killed. Policemen allegedly poisoned her, then carried her body to the Narmada River, where they burned it and dumped the remains in the water.
According to records later obtained by central government investigators, the officers allegedly involved made several phone calls around the time of each killing. On the other end of the line, each time, was a senior Gujarati politician who ran the state's home ministry, which put him in charge of the police. His name was Amit Shah.
Denne historien er fra May 24, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra May 24, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Starlink's conquest of the Amazon leaves Brazil in a dilemma
The helicopter swooped into one of the most inaccessible corners of the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian special forces commandos leaped from it into the caiman-inhabited waters below.
Dalai Lama's mountain town feels the strain of tourist boom
SUVs and saloon cars pass slowly along McLeod Ganj's narrow one-way Jogiwara Road, blaring horns at pedestrians and scooter riders and playing loud music.
'I am all the world' The brutal rule of a West Bank settler
Palestinians tell ofblacklisted Yakov's reign across the Jabal Salman valley and heisjust one of many violent bosses
Stormy waters New flashpoint emerges in South China Sea dispute
Hopes that tensions in the South China Sea might ease have been short lived.
'Justice delayed' Why trust in public inquiries to bring closure is fading
After the final report of the Grenfell fire inquiry was published, Hisam Choucair, who lost six family members in the blaze, said: \"We did not ask for this inquiry... It's delayed the justice my family deserves.\"
Celeriac soup with almond pangrattato
I'm not ashamed to say that as soon as September hits, my stick blender comes out. Just as I embrace salads when the clocks go forward in the UK, I wholeheartedly throw myself into soup season once the summer holidays end. Autumn is approaching in the northern hemisphere and I'm ready with my ladle. Celeriac is one of my favourite soup heroes, because it gives the creamiest, silkiest finish with little effort. You don't have to make the almond pangrattato, but it is a wonderful addition.
Are smoke signals telling me to make an oil change in the kitchen?
Should you that is, not can you) cook with extra-virgin olive oil? Antonio, Atlanta, Georgia, US
Going underground
A darkly humorous encounter between an American spy-cop and the members ofan eco-commune she is hired to infiltrate
All work and no play
Hard Graft, a powerfulnew London exhibition, focuses onworkers’ exploitation, from the ruined hands ofa washerwoman to mothers forced to sell their bodies
What the princess and the shaman tell us about hereditary privilege
It should have been an Instagram-perfect wedding image, but it turned out to be something more embarrassing.
